Each Thursday we look at what is going to be coming out in theaters this weekend, show you the trailers for the big releases, predict the box office winner and just generally give you enough of a carrot to pull you through the rest of the work week. May 12th is another sacrificial lamb week. No one wants to take on the money printing juggernaut that is Marvel/Disney’s Captain America: Civil War. The highest profile film, George Clooney’s Money Makers, had not been released to critics at the time of this writing, which is not a good sign at all. A number of smaller films are opening, some with great reviews, so your best option, if you’re not seeing Civil War again, is to try one of them.
You have it all this week. You can go with the big picture and Clooney and Roberts in Money Makers. You can go horror with The Darkness. If you like Jane Austen, there’s Love & Friendship. If you want to laugh at Nicolas Cage, he’s in a movie too, or you can puzzle over The Lobster. Of all these releases, Ewan McGregor’s Last Days in the Desert is likely the only one I’ll look for once it hits the home circuit.
The Darkness (Kevin Bacon, PG-13, 1hr 32min)
High-Rise (Tom Hiddleston, R, 1hr 52min)
Last Days in the Desert (Ewan McGregor, PG-13, 1hr 38min)
The Lobster (Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, R, 1hr 58min)
Love & Friendship (Kate Beckinsale, PG, 1hr 34min)
Money Monster (George Clooney, Julia Roberts, R, 1hr 30min)
The Trust (Nicolas Cage, Elijah Wood, R, 1hr 32min)
HOW DID WE DO LAST WEEK?
KT went with the obvious pick of Captain America and it delivered the 5th biggest opening of all-time with $179.2 million. Light years behind, in second place, was the three-time champ Disney’s The Jungle Book with $24.5 million. Zootopia and Batman vs. Superman are literally a million dollars apart for #1 film of the year, but I have a feeling by sometime next week, Captain America will make that battle irrelevant. Heck, The Jungle Book is going to pass both of them too. Thanks to the good Captain for raising my prediction record to 80%. (Lifetime record 8-2).
WHO WILL WIN THE WEEKEND?
I’m just going to say this now, though we’ll continue to play it out: Cap is going to win this weekend and next weekend. It wouldn’t matter if it had competition and it really doesn’t. At the end of the month, it faces X-Men: Apocalypse, but with the horrid reviews that film is getting, maybe its reign will last to June. I don’t think you’ll see another film rack up this much bank until Rogue One in December.
Normally I go for weird dystopian movies like The Lobster, but as it’s from the director who gave us Dogtooth… pass. Also not even good reviews could have saved Money Monster. Audiences do not want to see movies about the world of finance, even if said movies are thrillers. And George Clooney is not exactly a draw. He hasn’t been for such a long time (other than Clooney, I’ve never known of an actor who sabotaged his own career on purpose, but I’ve heard Clooney give interviews. He took the high road and knew exactly what he was doing).
So yes, dumping ground, but don’t discount Through the Looking Glass on the 27th. That is the movie that Civil War will have to compete with, not Apocalypse. Both will continue to get bad reviews, but Alice is the sequel to a mind-bendigly successful movie, it’s going to appeal to families and kids, and it looks like it’s just plain amazing and fun. On the other hand Apocalypse is the umpteenth X-Men sequel, and as you’ve pointed out the coming attractions are all about the action and explosions. And there are only so many superhero epics that can fit the space of a couple of months without audiences growing exhausted. Will this movie turn out to be like BvS, or Civil War? Your average moviegoer has no idea. But I think most people will feel like they need a time out.
Another Disney movie will outshine another Disney movie, again.
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Alice has Johnny Depp baggage. He’s not a draw he’s a repellant at this point. It looks nice but it also looks annoying. There are die hard Xmen fans who will go no matter what. I would pick Civil War to beat Alice and Xmen briefly number one. But that’s two picks away. I get another gimme next week, though I do want to see the Nice Guys if Shane Black can deliver another one like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
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George Clooney did his best to sabotage his own career, but Depp did one better: he avoided having a huge career from the get-go. Those Pirate movies gave him his huge breakout role, yet they were also the death knell of his career. There was no coming back from Superstar Land, yet it was a place he never belonged, except on a very rare basis.
But the first Alice made a billion dollars, and while we know that sequels don’t always come close to being as successful as the originals, we are not talking about Highlander 2 here. This Alice sequel looks solid, like it lives up to the original and then some. In fact, the imagery looks more appealing and imaginative. The trailers make the film look interesting even to me, a Lewis Carroll snob (I can admit that I’m a Lewis Carroll snob, because it’s one of the very few things I’m a snob about).
Sure Depp and Sasha Baron Cohen are struggling, but I don’t see a movie huge as Alice not having a huge sequel, too. Let me end with the caveat that the more I live the less I know, and I could be wrong.
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